The team looking after the occupational health of North 
The Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Service (SEQOHS) standards are the industry benchmark for occupational health service and NEAS has now maintained the accreditation since 2013.
NEAS has a workforce of over 3,400 employees and up to 1,000 supporting students who support around 1.5 million patients across the North East every year.
Hundreds of the service’s staff have been supported to stay well at work by the occupational health team’s specialist occupational nurses and consultants this year alone.
The team is made up of seven members of staff including occupational health specialist nurses, a physiotherapist, a consultant physician, nurse advisors and occupational health administrators.
Head of staff experience, occupational health and wellbeing, Victoria Wright said: “Our occupational health team is dedicated to ensuring our colleagues have the support they need to remain well at work. That can mean offering support with anything from vaccinations to physiotherapy.
“Over the past few years, the team has also been developing greater support for employee mental health, led by our new psychological advisor. We know that emergency service workers can experience greater mental health issues across their working lives and as an employer, it’s important that we promote good mental health.”
Recently shortlisted for a Health Service Journal award, NEAS has implemented an employee mental maintenance programme consists of an employee toolkit, a personalised plan, which acts as a reflective journal, manager guides and a suicide prevention resource.
Victoria continued, “Our occupational health team really do an amazing job of looking after our colleagues each day and having a healthy workforce means that our people are better equipped to look after our patients, day in day out."
The (SEQOHS) standards are required to be met each year with self-assessments, upload evidence and provide quality assurance. This is done annually and every five years, a full accreditation assessment is undertaken.
A spokesperson at SEQOHS accreditation team said: “The service has provided some excellent evidence of their continued compliance with the SEQOHS standards and should be congratulated on their achievement."
The five-year accreditation is valid until 2028.
Read more about the full accreditation here: https://